


Home Is

by Deshah



Category: Girl Genius
Genre: F/F, Found Family, Gen, Jaeger Origin Story, OC Jagers, Title Subject to Change, even the jaeger army has spies, why won't it let me do the little accent mark argh
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-09-25
Updated: 2016-09-25
Packaged: 2018-08-17 06:30:22
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,273
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8133773
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Deshah/pseuds/Deshah
Summary: When she was sent to spy on the Heterodyne, Ssorae didn't anticipate falling in love, nor in loyalty.Some six hundred years later, she set out on a hopeless search and found something wonderful anyway.





	1. In which Ssorae participates in a lot of bar fights, and a background is established

**Author's Note:**

> Someday I will get the hang of writing Jaeger accents. Someday.

The thing about searching for the Heterodyne is that – yes, noble purpose, yada yada – it gets boring. And lonely. And boring. Ssorae does not deal well with lonely and boring. So when she hears someone losing a fight and cursing up a storm about it, her first thought is, _fun!_

...Admittedly, this would have been her first thought _anyway._

 

 _Fun!_ Had not always been Ssorae’s first reaction to violence. For a long time, her first reaction was _hide_. It’s a useful reflex when you’re stick-thin, fast, sneaky... and not much else. Once she’d grown up a bit, well. She was an adventuress’s daughter; she knew how to make herself opportunities. By the time she was twenty, she was a spy. When she was twenty-five, she was sent to spy on the Heterodyne.

Her bosses had been hoping the assignment would kill her; she was a little too good at her job. Instead, it introduced her to Natalie.

Natalie is small, for a Jäger, shorter than Ssorae even as a human. She looks like a werewolf, if werewolves were purple-grey and perpetually half-shifted. With her masses of curly hair, she’s the fluffiest Jäger Ssorae had ever seen, and cute in an I-have-no-self-preservation kind of way. She’s got a sly sort of humor that’s hard to spot through her _Jägerness,_ and she likes it that way. She regards the entirety of life as an opportunity to have fun, often at others’ expense, and the only people she really seems to regard as _real people_ are the Jägerkin and the Heterodynes. Ssorae was instantly smitten. Natalie thought this weird outsider girl was _hilarious._

One thing led to another. Before long, Ssorae spent more time with the Jägers than at her work. Her superiors were unable to get another spy in with the Heterodyne. Eventually, she just let them think she was dead.

The more time she spent with the Jägers, the more she found that they spoke to a part of her she normally kept buried under caution and scheming. Charging in like her mother was no way to keep someone like her alive. But...

She joined them playing – “playing”, for Jägers, is friendly brawls – using tactics that let her keep up and won her the label _shneaky gorl_ with a proud grin from Natalie. It wasn’t about Natalie – it stopped being about Natalie weeks in – it was about...

“So,” Natalie said one day, sprawled next to her in bed, “Vhen are hyu goink to take de brau?”

Ssorae froze.

Then bolted.

The next day found her dithering in front of General Gkika, trying to find a way to ask her to support her bid with Lady Heterodyne. Gkika laughed, took her by the shoulder, and brought her to Lady Domnica herself.

The interview with the Lady was terrifying, and quite possibly the last time she was ever afraid.

(The first thing Natalie said when she saw her new form was _wow, you’re_ gorgeous.)

The romantic aspect of her relationship with Natalie didn’t last much longer than that, but mentor-student was, for them, a much stronger bond.


	2. In which Ssorae has a little fun, and broods probably more than is good for her

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> You can't be a Jäger for six hundred years and not pick up at least _some_ appreciation for the straight forward approach.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I do not advise typing _or_ editing on a tablet.

Ssorae was attempting to view her self-imposed exile as a sort of adventure. She had been on (mostly brief) solo missions before, so as long as she could make herself believe that this was just another routine mission, or failing that something exciting and new… 

It wasn’t working very well so far. She had been on the road for three weeks and passed through two towns, pressing her spines down and shifting her skin and dimming her glow to look as human as possible, and she was growing increasingly, crushingly lonely, without so much as a hint of a Heterodyne. 

She hadn't expected it to be that easy, of course. But it would have been _nice._

The whole thing would have been easier to deal with -- wouldn’t have gotten to her so quickly -- if there had been an end in sight. Even when she was human open-ended solo missions had sent her spiraling into unspoken depression. Maybe that’s why she’d been so quick to go native, when she’d been sent to spy on the Heterodyne all those years ago. She’d never been so quick to fall into loyalty, but Domnica Heterodyne had been a singular woman, even for a spark -- even for a spark of her family line. Ssorae had loved all her masters, simply by dint of them _being_ her masters, but none to the extent that she loved Lady Domnica. She didn’t think she ever would. (She was wrong about that. But she had disliked Bill and Barry as much as a Jäger could dislike a Heterodyne and _hated_ Lucrezia, and would never have thought that their successor would be so… _Agatha._ But that’s the future.) It didn’t matter whether she loved her masters as much as her lady. She loved them, and she loved, loves, her pack, and… and out there on her own she was desperately, horribly lonely.

That’s probably why she started accumulating strays. 

 

“You fucking-- inbred weasily _cunt_ , you--” huff, pant “--won’t kill me like this, I _refuse_ \--” The sound of fighting had drawn Ssorae close enough to hear the nearly-defeated construct yelling at the cackling spark on an honestly rather sad-looking clank as they ran desperately away. The scattered remains of smaller clanks told her what the noise had been, and as she watched, the construct turned, still running backwards, and fired some sort of ray-gun at the clank. This did little more than singe it, and when they attempted a second shot all they got was a sad flurry of sparks. They shrieked, throwing the gun with startling accuracy at the glass shielding the spark from attack. This, at least, cracked it. 

Ssorae decided immediately that she liked this person. 

Decision made, she took all of two seconds to consider being something approaching subtle about this, and then charged in with a shouted “Hoy!”

Coming from the side as she did, Ssorae was able to leap right over the side of the clank to land behind its driver. She grabbed his head and -- well, what was enhanced strength for? -- ripped it clean off his shoulders, jumping up to wrap her legs around his torso for leverage. The man's hair-raising scream was abruptly cut off. Blood went everywhere. It was _great._

Aaand the clank was still barrelling forwards, but now the controls were covered in blood. 

…

Well, it’s not like she would have gotten far trying to interpret them, anyway. Ssorae kicked the corpse out of the way and started pressing buttons. Her first attempt resulted in a sharp scent of ozone and a bright blue laser, which nearly hit the construct where they had frozen in shock. The dodged, but their long braid must have been caught in it; the smell of singed hair wafted up to her. The construct cursed some more, this time at her. 

“Zorry!” She called down. But… “Dot’s zum verra uncreative cursink, chust zo hyu know!” More cursing. She grinned. 

Attempt number two whirled it around in a circle -- _whee!_ \-- and number three resulted in fireballs, this time aimed harmlessly off to the side. Mashing everything down at once created a creaking groan as the clank attempted to do too many things simultaneously, and, finally, the legs gave out and the whole thing came crashing down with an almighty _thunk._

The clank had barely fallen before Ssorae was bounding down to meet the construct, quickly overtaking them as they tried to scramble away from her. 

“Zo! Vhat’s up vit hyu, dollink?” 

Confused anger overtook terror in dark brown eyes. “You-- what-- _darling?_ I’m not a girl!”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The generals probably shouldn't have approved of her going off on her own. The theory, of course, was that Jägers who can blend in would go alone, provided they're old enough to be pretty stable alone. And she _is_ old... Also a very good actress.

**Author's Note:**

> I feel like this is very... rushed? Very tell-not-show. I am working on that, though; hopefully subsequent chapters will be better in that respect.


End file.
